


a loveliness when grown

by basha



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Minor Violence, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:35:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basha/pseuds/basha
Summary: T’Pring meets James T. Kirk on Tarsus IV during the worst year of her life. He then proceeds to steal her future husband, coerce her into abandoning the Vulcan way and joining Starfleet, and (almost) ruin her chances with Nyota Uhura.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & T'Pring, James T. Kirk/Spock, Spock & T'Pring (Star Trek), T'Pring/Nyota Uhura
Comments: 23
Kudos: 516





	a loveliness when grown

**Part I: Tarsus IV**

T’Pring and James T. Kirk meet the first day of school, after placement tests, when they are put into their own room with just the two of them and told that, because of the limited capabilities of the school thus far, they will be engaging in online schooling at a collegiate level, together. They are both given fancy computers hooked up to a program that promises a rigorous academic schedule and then left completely alone. T’Pring, who already hates this school (all small, rectangular classrooms full of other children) and this planet (all dirt and crops and other species) and pretty much everyone and everything, decides she hates him.

He smiles at her. “Wanna get out of here?”

“The head teacher instructed us to remain here and begin our lessons,” she says, tapping into the first “class”, and then shutting it off immediately when it begins to play a video. 

“Yeah, but it’s fucking dumb,” the kid says. “I mean, okay, let’s think logically about it. Isn’t it illogical to coup up two of the brightest young minds on this planet and make us waste our time with this crap? If they can’t think of anything better for us to do, don’t we have an obligation to ourselves and to society to come up with something?” T’Pring looks at him. It is not a bad point, this, like every minute she spends on this colony, is a waste of her time. And, though she tries not to examine it because she knows it’s illogical, she has always enjoyed breaking the rules. 

“I concur,” she says. “Where shall we go?” They have to sneak out, first, which isn’t hard, and then they’re running through the woods behind the school, running until they find a clear meadow. It’s idyllic, the prettiest thing T’Pring has seen since her shuttle arrived. They plop down into the tall grass next to each other.

“I’m Jim,” the boy introduces himself, holding out a hand. She stares at it until he realizes and puts it down, blush coloring his already pink face even deeper pink. “Sorry, I forgot about the Vulcan hand thing." 

“I am T’Pring,” she says. “And I would better characterize this as the ‘Vulcan hand thing.’” She holds up a ta’al, which he tries and fails to mimic. 

“You’re gonna have to teach me how to do that.” She doesn’t laugh (she never laughs) but she allows the side of her mouth to twitch. She and Jim remain in the field, talking for hours, about how Tarsus IV differs from their homeworlds and their favorite books and the food on Tarsus, which sucks. Jim seems fascinated when she tells him that she’s betrothed, and demands details about Spock, her future bondmate, many of which she does not know and cannot tell him. 

A frantic member of the governors’ guard finds them eventually and drags them back to the police station, where T’Pring’s parents and Jim’s aunt wait along with the governor himself. T’Pring pushes down the illogical strain of anxiety. 

“Do you know how much you scared us all?” Jim’s aunt demands. “Your mother is damn near frantic.” Jim drags himself to his full height, barely 5 feet tall, and glares at all of the adults in turn. 

“We demand a sufficient education or we won’t be returning to school at all,” he tells them. T’Pring keeps her face neutral but remains at Jim’s side. Jim’s aunt goes red, and starts shouting at Jim, but then Governor Kodos steps up with a calm smile on his face.

“Wait a second, ma’am,” he says. “Let’s hear the boy out.” By the end of the day they’ve worked out a schedule that works for all involved, where Jim and T’Pring spend part of the week essentially teaching each other and the other part following around various members of the community, getting practical demonstrations of life skills. That night, T’Pring goes home with her parents, optimistic about Tarsus IV for the very first time. 

Over the next few months, T’Pring spends the majority of her time with Jim, during which she quickly discovers that he is the single most illogical being T’Pring has ever encountered. He is human and rash and stupid. He has a criminal record, which, when T’Pring looks it up, includes grand theft auto and destruction of property. His given name reflects his noble ancestry, a great honor bestowed upon him by his parents, but he insists on being called Jim. Unlike herself, he chose to come live on this stupid colony, for no reason he has ever able to articulate. He despises authority and attempts to break every rule just to see if he can. He smiles when he’s angry. 

He’s her best friend. 

“Best friend” is a human term, one he teaches her the night before the Solstice formal. For obvious reasons, she was not planning on attending the formal, just as she has chosen not to interact with most of the school dances, events, and “extracurricular opportunities” they offer. Jim, gregarious and popular, has attended them all. He’s already gotten in trouble at various events for spiking the punch and hijacking the music. T’Pring regards him cooly, looking up from her padd, where she has been checking the only problem they got different answers on from the homework last night. 

“Why would you even want me to come?” she asks. “I will not be able to amuse you like Sally Heston or Cynthia Brend.” Jim laughs.

“Aw, come on, T, don’t tell me you buy into those rumors.” T’Pring raises one eyebrow, and he laughs again. 

“Fuck, you’ve got to teach me how to do that one day.” She returns her gaze to the padd but he grabs it from her, careful not to let their hands brush. “You’re my best friend, T’Pring. I always have more fun when I’m with you.” She meets his gaze, finding him steady and earnest as always. 

“I will come for an hour,” she tells him. “But I will not dance.” He smiles, eyes crinkling, then hits her, hard, on the shoulder. “What was that for?” She demands. 

“Sorry,” Jim says. “Dumb human thing.” He steps away, looking chagrined, but T’Pring doesn’t mind. She’s adjusted to a lot of other cultures while living on Tarsus IV, and while it’s one of her least favorite things, it somehow makes her feel more Vulcan. She punches him back, almost as hard as she can. He stares at her in shock. Then he bursts into laughter. 

She’s just starting to become comfortable with her life on Tarsus IV when it all goes to shit (another expression she’s picked up from Jim). It starts slowly, with food shortages. Jim jokes that the food is so bad the rest of the time that he doesn’t really mind; she can’t help but secretly agree. But then it stops being funny and starts being terrifying. The government starts to ration the food that’s not ruined by the fungus, and the rations get smaller and smaller. Communication with the outside world gets shakier and shakier until it gives out entirely. They are well and truly alone in the universe. 

She and Jim stop with most of their virtual classes and spend a lot of time trying to build a communicator that can breach the ion cloud surrounding Tarsus IV, to send out some sort of cry for help. It’s foolish, really, as smart as they are, they are just children, and even the brightest minds on Tarsus IV can’t fix the problem. T’Pring doesn’t let herself voice this, the only thing more illogical than believing she can fix this would be not even trying. Jim goes to visit the governor more and more often, and comes back looking more and more beleaguered. T’Pring, completely illogically, packs a survival kit and buries it in her backyard. 

The day of the massacre, she and Jim are in a fight. They’re both starving and tired and afraid, and it manifests in harsh words from him and stony silence from her. The day before, they had argued about going to the address at all. Only about half of the colony were invited, including T’Pring and her family and Jim’s aunt and uncle, but excluding Jim himself. Jim told her he was planning to go anyway, T’Pring calls him selfish and tells him to do what he’s told, for once. 

In the town square, Kodos stands above them on a platform. Guards fill in around the edges of the crowd. The council is nowhere in sight. T’Pring expects a plan. A message of hope. A plea for calmness. What she gets is the opposite. The crowd shifts, nervous and then afraid, as Kodos talks, in a calm, clear voice. T’Pring’s mother grabs her arm, hard, fingers digging into her wrist; T’Pring can’t remember the last time her mother touched her. 

“Run.” The shooting starts before the words have really registered but T’Pring obeys, scrambling in an undignified, desperate path to survival. At one point, she trips over something and hears a wail; she looks and sees that the something is a dead human woman, and the wail was from the mouth of a small, human toddler. She picks up the kid and keeps running, searching for a break in the wall of guards. 

“T’Pring!” She twists to find the source of the call among the madness and finds Jim in the doorway of a building, holding out his hand. She runs towards him, ignoring his hand; he turns and runs through the back of the store, and she follows, right on his heels. Out back, T’Pring finds another small group of children, no doubt also rescued by Jim. He waves them all along, and they run until they can’t hear gunfire anymore and stop, panting, in the shadow of the school. 

“Jim,” she says, fearfully.

“I know.” His face is grim, an expression she’s never seen on him before. He takes the child from her arms and she notes that she’s shaking all over. 

“My house,” she says. “I have supplies.” He nods.

“Yes,” he agrees. “And then mine.” The child starts to cry again in his arms as they make their way through the back streets, first into T’Pring’s backyard and then Jim’s, and T’Pring’s heart beats in her side, sure they’ll be caught and executed. In the backyard, Jim picks the lock to the storm cellar, and ushers them all inside. He looks at T’Pring, mouth set in a straight line. “Kodos said he’d come by,” he tells her, voice shaking. “I need to go upstairs and wait for him. Can you keep them quiet?” He means the other kids but she should really be included in that question. She wants to scream, wants to rip her own hair out. Instead she nods.

“James. Be careful.” He smiles, and she doesn’t know at the time but it’s the last real smile she’ll see on his face for weeks. 

“I will be.” T’Pring comforts the children as best as she can, though comfort has never been her strong suit. She answers their questions as best they can and begs them to be silent. When begging doesn’t work, threatening does. A younger girl (Kayla, she’ll learn) clutches the toddler (Kevin) to her chest like he’s her doll. She hears the front door open an hour later, then slam shut an hour after that. Jim comes back down the stairs, holding two cans of beans, a spoon, and a mound of bedding. He won’t meet her eye. They all share the beans, passing them around in a clockwise circle. It’s not enough for any of them. Jim, somehow, magically, convinces the children to sleep a while later. Then he sits on the bottom stair, shoulder pressed to T’Pring’s, staring resolutely at the dirt floor beneath them.

“He told me he spared me,” Jim tells her. “He told me I should be grateful. And then--”

“What, James?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. We worked out a deal. I think I can keep you and the kids alive for a while.” 

“You will not have to do it alone,” T’Pring says. Then she punches him in the shoulder. He hesitates, then punches back. 

The next day passes, long and interminable, and then the next. The days become a week, then two. Kodos comes by every other day, like clockwork. His guards come by at random hours. T’Pring watches the children, Jim entertains their “guests”. Jim shares every morsel of food he receives with them, but it’s designed for one mouth, not ten; it’s clear to T’Pring that they won’t all survive for very long. She takes a few of the older children on scavenging trips at night, raiding the houses of the dead and eventually resorting to finding plants in the woods and hoping they don’t kill them faster than the famine. 

She gets scratched badly by thorns on one such trip, and Jim takes her upstairs, risking both of their lives, to patch her up. He has to touch her skin to do so, and she registers, with shock and delight, that a bond has formed between them. It’s very faint and completely platonic, but it’s real. It means she’s not alone. 

At some point, Jim stops eating at all, because she does.

“It is different,” she argues. “Vulcan biology--”

“Shut up, T’Pring,” he says. He has dark circles under his eyes and flinches away from touch; they are all being actively traumatized every day they sit, terrified, in the dark, but something uniquely horrific is happening with him, something he refuses to talk about. In T’Pring’s lap, Kevin cries out for his mother. She holds him closer in her arms, and can feel every rib in his body. She nods.

She wonders sometimes if it might not be the most logical choice just to burn the house down with all of them isn’t. Why should they prolong what seems like the inevitable?

One day, T’Pring is awakened in the middle of the night by sirens, loud and insistent. She sits bolt upright. The kids, accustomed to silence, begin to cry without making a sound. Jim bounds down the stairs, smiling for the first time in months. 

“It’s Starfleet!” he shouts, joyously. “It’s Starfleet!” 

The people in red shirts are delicate as they help shepherd the children out of the storm cellar and back into the sunlight. T’Pring clutches Kevin to her chest and refuses to come until Jim grabs her wrist and begs. The inside of the starship is white and pristine, humming with activity. When they get to the medbay, Jim collapses out of exhaustion. T’Pring forces herself to be strong for just a little while longer and turns to the captain, a man named Pike.

“We will not be separated,” she says, gesturing to herself and Jim and the children. 

“Of course not,” Pike says. “Of course not.”

After so long trapped in fear and darkness the next few days are surreal. They each placed in a bio bed, fed whenever they want. Adults in blue shirts tend to them and want to talk to them about their feelings. T’Pring recovers quickly and spends most of her time sitting by James, feeling his seething anger and sadness as if it was her own. They are all put in contact with their remaining family members. T’Pring calls her clan matriarch and is promised a place to stay when she returns to Vulcan. Pike calls Jim’s mother when Jim won’t, and returns with a grim set to his mouth.

T’Pring is sitting by his side, so he stands awkwardly at the foot of the bed and informs Jim that his mother is far away, on a very important mission, but that she personally requested for Pike to look after him. T’Pring straightens her posture, even more so than normal.

“That is illogical and stupid,” she tells them both. “Jim will come with me.” They both look shocked, but a plan forms slowly in her mind. “Jim and I share a family bond. I am to stay with the family of my future bondmate. The mother is a human, like Jim. She will let him stay as well.” 

“I’m not gonna force myself on some--”

“James,” she says. “Shut up.” She’s pretty sure she hears Pike snort from the foot of the bed, but she’s focused on Jim, on the small but genuine smile spreading across his face. 

Amanda Greyson, indeed, agrees when T’Pring asks/demands that Jim come to live with them as well, smiling at them both over the vidscreen. 

“Spock, Sarek, and I all very much look forward to seeing you both,” she says, sweetly. When they hang up, Jim leans his head against T’Pring’s shoulder, pensive. They are the only two left aboard the ship; the other children have all been reunited with their surviving family and taken away. Jim cried every time one of them left; T’Pring cannot cry, biologically, but it ripped at her heart and left her sullen and shut off. 

“So,” Jim says, finally breaking the silence. “We’re gonna go live with your future hubby, huh?”

“Bondmate,” T’Pring corrects. “And yes.”

“Sounds like I’m gonna be third wheeling a lot.”

“I do not understand.”

“Like, on a bicycle, how--? Nevermind. It’s just going to be awkward for me, hanging out with an almost married couple.”

“You are delusional,” she tells him. “Spock and I are not close. We were assigned as bondmates when we were young, but I know very little of him. My bond with you is voluntary, and therefore superior.” Jim smiles, punching her shoulder lightly.

“Aw, you love me.” She tries not to smile, but the corner of her lip twitches. 

**Part II: Vulcan**

Two days later, they beam down to the surface of Vulcan, where their new family awaits. It’s hot on Vulcan, perfect weather for T’Pring, though she worries about Jim’s fragile form. After so long away, being back on Vulcan is like redreaming a dream from long ago. She wants to throw herself to the ground, she wants to run and run until she finds her old home, as if her parents will be waiting for her, alive instead of as ghosts. Instead, she angles herself just slightly in front of Jim, and greets each of their new family in turn. Being this close to Spock activates the weak bond between the two of them, and she feels his awkwardness flood her senses. 

“It’s good to see you, T’Pring,” Amanda says warmly. She can’t remember the last time they all saw each other. “And lovely to meet you, Jim.” Jim smiles awkwardly and flashes them all the ta’al, just as she taught him. Something inexplicable flashes through her and Spock’s bond, something she’s never quite felt before.

“Thank you for allowing me to live with you, Lady Grayson,” Jim says. “I’ll try not to be a bother.” T’Pring snorts, and Spock meets her eye for the first time, shock registering through their bond, though his face reveals nothing. She meets his eyes resolutely. She will not allow a half-Vulcan to mock the human attributes she has picked up. She will not allow anyone to mock her. Jim nudges her, and Spock’s eyes flicker to his. T’Pring watches them stare at each other. 

“This is Spock,” she says. 

“Neat,” Jim says.

There are two bonds twining inside of her, and she feels something very strange rush through both. It’s not a bad feeling, just tingly, and unnerving in stereo. She makes a mental note to shore up her mental shields. 

It takes days for their lives on Vulcan to get set up--school, new clothes, learning the rhythms of a new household--and months for them to get used to it. Spock seems relieved to have their constant company--them, like he himself, are treated as social outcasts for their humanness, which T’Pring displays with pride--and eventually she and Jim allow him into their friendship. They spend their days together, learning at school, playing chess and watching movies (“for educational reasons”) at home. 

It’s not perfect, of course. She misses the kids, her parents, even the version of herself and Jim she was before the massacre. She hoards food in their room but often can’t bring herself to eat. She has nightmares. Jim is clearly haunted, too. His nightmares are worse than hers, leaving him sobbing on the floor and lashing out at anyone who tries to come close. He avoids being left alone with Sarek at all costs. T’Pring feels grateful that, at least, she and Jim can face their trauma together. 

It’s not so bad, until Jim threatens to leave. 

Maybe “threaten” isn’t the right word. His mother calls him one day, out of the blue, and tells him that she’s coming to pick him up. He tells the family over dinner. He hasn’t eaten a thing, which makes T’Pring’s heart pound, and the announcement only serves to terrify her further. 

“No,” she says, at the very same time as Spock. She doesn’t even need to look at her betrothed to know that they are thinking the same thing: if Jim leaves, everything will be bad and wrong. They won’t work as a pair; Jim is their lynchpin. “You cannot go, Jim,” she says, aware how strange and fragile her voice comes out. “You are my best friend. You are my family.”

“I don’t want to go!” Jim bursts out, tears in his stupid blue, human eyes. “But what can I do?”

“I will talk to Winona,” Amanda says resolutely, pushing herself out of her seat. “Eat your dinner, Jim.” T’Pring watches him until she feels better. When Amanda comes in, she has tears in her eyes but a smile on her face, and she tells them that Jim is allowed to stay indefinitely. 

That night, in their room, Jim climbs down from his bed and into T’Pring’s. 

“I love you too, you know,” he says. “If there was one good thing about Tarsus, it’s that I met you.” T’Pring brushes her hand against his face, just for a second, and knows that he considers her a sister just as she considers him a brother. They sleep that night without nightmares. 

A few months pass into a few years, and a very strange thing happens: T’Pring, Jim, and Spock become, collectively, “best friends.”

“You have to like one of us better,” T’Pring snaps one day. They are all in the midst of growth spurts, though both her and Jim’s heights are stunted due to their years on Tarsus IV, lying around in the Vulcan summer heat. Jim suffers a lot in the summer, so Amanda installed a pool, in which he now floats. T’Pring and Spock sit just on the edge of the pool, avoiding touching the water. “Best is a singular adjective.”

“Tough,” Jim says. “Cause you’re both my best friends.” Life on Vulcan has been good for Jim: his brilliant mind is nurtured by the Vulcan education system, and his penchant for mischief can be saved just by messing with Spock, which is his favorite pastime. His nightmares are infrequent, his panic attacks even more so. It has not been quite as kind to T’Pring, who cannot act human enough to develop Jim’s easy carelessness, nor Vulcan enough to fit in with her peers. She and Spock bond over this, and over their mutual admiration of Jim, though there remains a complete lack of anything romantic between them. 

“I also harbor great affection for you, Jim,” Spock says. “And you as well, T’Pring.” T’Pring resists the incredibly human urge to roll her eyes. There is something special between Spock and Jim, something beautiful and ephemeral that tampers with her bond with Spock. She wonders if the prickly feeling in her chest is “jealousy” and if she is now the “third wheel,” but she rejects the idea outright. Jim and Spock both belong to her as much as they belong to each other, or maybe even more so. Even if she does find Jim and Spock gazing into each other's eyes and falling asleep in each other's’ beds. She wouldn’t want that anyway. 

“Well I hate both of you,” she says, and Jim laughs. 

“You know most people think Vulcans can’t lie?”

James T. Kirk changes her life once again the year before graduation. T’Pring is just thinking about how quickly and pleasantly the time has passed when Jim drags her into Spock’s room and announces: “I have a brilliant idea.”

“James,” Spock says, “we are not going to ‘T.P.’ Stonn's house. The idea is illogical, and your insistence on repeatedly bringing it up borders on insane.” T’Pring sends him a wave of amusement through the bond. Her relationship with Spock is still not romantic, though she is often assured that this aspect will develop soon, but it is largely built on a foundation of loving exasperation with James T. Kirk. 

“Nor are we going to get another sehlat,” she adds. “Amanda has made that very clear.”

“You guys are thinking too small,” Jim says, grinning. “Guess again.”

“It is illogical to--”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Jim laughs. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two, crumpled pamphlets, which he throws at them. T’Pring picks hers up, reading the front at the same time Jim says “Starfleet!”

“What about Starfleet?” She demands, thinking of the cheerful bustle on the ship that rescued them, the calm smile on the face of Captain Pike. 

“We’re going to join,” Jim says. T’Pring meets Spock’s eye. 

“I hate to disappoint you, Jim,” Spock says. “But Vulcans do not join Starfleet.”

**Part III: Starfleet**

They join Starfleet, of course. Because Jim really wants to. And because T’Pring and Spock, for one reason or another, are dedicated to this foolish, beautiful human. 

(Before they go, Sarek asks if they anticipate getting officially bonded before they leave the planet. She and Spock exchange a look, shared distaste swirling through the bond. 

“Perhaps when we return this summer,” Spock says, diplomatically.)

Being at the Academy is new and exciting. T’Pring feels alive here, feels awake. Here, her and Spock’s mix of Vulcan and human is overlooked in favor of excitement to have Vulcans at all. She and Spock room together, because they both like their room to be the same temperature but also because somewhere between agreeing to join Starfleet and actually arriving, he and Jim have had some sort of stupid fight that they won’t tell her about. 

That part’s kind of terrible, because they refuse to be together unless T’Pring is also there, and, because they’re no longer emoting all over each other, they both come to her with their feelings. Though in Spock’s case he just sort of sends her waves of angst through their bond and she replicates him Vulcan soup and awkwardly pats him on the head (Vulcan on Vulcan affection, as Jim calls it, is a delicate art). T’Pring thinks it’s probably good practice for them to live together, and she likes that Spock doesn’t judge her (too much) when she hoards food under the bed or calls Kevin or Tom or one of the other kids in the middle of the night to make sure they’re okay. She and Spock get along quite well, and would get along even better if they weren’t engaged. 

They all worry about Jim’s assigned roommate, Leonard McCoy, but he turns out to be the perfect addition to their friend group. He’s human enough to give Jim a much needed ally against T’Pring and Spock’s combined logic, but grumpy enough to side with them when necessary. He also turns to be a doctor, which is great, because neither T’Pring or Jim want their medical history to be public knowledge. They ask Bones (Jim’s incomprehensible nickname for the man) to be their doctor early on, which he accepts, first grumpily and then, once he’s read their files, with genuine warmth at their trust. 

So T’Pring has all the friends she could ever need, a family of growing children all across the galaxy, a course schedule she likes, and easy access to food and medical attention. Sure, she’s engaged to a man she’ll never love, and Jim and Spock refuse to be alone in a room together, but everything is perfect. And then Jim has to go and hit on Nyota Uhura.

The first time they meet Nyota, T’Pring literally feels herself going weak at the knees, she clutches at Jim’s shoulder and forces her face into a mask of neutrality. 

“I want to be her friend,” she tells Jim. 

Nyota’s beautiful and brilliant and witty, things T’Pring notices completely objectively, thank you very much. She’s also in the only class she, Jim, and Spock all share, which is a class on the history of Starfleet. Jim, who’s dad is a subject of an entire unit, is the only one failing. He’s also the one who swaggers up to Uhura after class one day and asks her if she wants to join their study group. She feels a strange and irrational bolt of jealousy. 

“Jim,” Spock snaps at him that night, over dinner, “why did you not first consult me and T’Pring on the members of our study group?”

“The study group isn’t even real,” Jim counters, sounding petulant. “I mean, it is now, you guys gotta come to the library with me tomorrow, but I just wanted to spend more time with Cadet Uhura. I’m tired of third-wheeling all the time.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Bones complains. 

Over time, Nyota becomes their friend. She is the first female friend T’Pring’s had in a long time, and they get along like a house on fire. Nyota seems shocked to notice that Vulcans are capable of real friendship, but she falls into it openly and enthusiastically. She teaches T’Pring all of the parts of human culture Jim might have overlooked. Being with Nyota is intoxicating, and T’Pring wonders at the depth of her feelings for the human woman. 

She also, maybe, becomes Jim’s girlfriend. They go out with each other, at least, to do things that Spock and T’Pring don’t want to do because they’re Vulcan and Bones doesn’t want to do because he’s “an old man, goddamn it.” Jim talks about Nyota all of the time, especially in front of Spock, and spends more and more time with her as the weeks pass. T’Pring feels a bizarre and unfair sense of jealousy, and she doesn’t know who it’s aimed at, but she takes it out on Jim, freezing him out and pushing him further into Nyota’s arms. 

Amanda says maybe they’re just growing up. 

Then T’Pring is awoken one night, very late, by her communicator beeping. She’s been a light sleeper since the massacre, and the noise wakes her up and sends her stumbling across the room before she’s even fully cognizant. Spock wakes up too and watches her with impassive eyes as she answers. 

“Cadet T’Pring.”

“T?” It’s Nyota, sounding worried. She and Jim are supposed to be out at some club right now.

“What is happening?” T’Pring demands. “Is James alright?”

“I-I’m not sure,” Nyota says. “W-we were dancing, and then Jim started dancing with this other guy, and he was gone for a while, and then there was this big commotion and the bouncers threw him out and we’re sitting outside of the club and he won’t move or let me touch him or stop crying.”

“Where are you?” T’Pring demands. “We’ll be right there.” She and Spock pull on shoes and jackets and hurry out of the door, towards their best friend. T’Pring’s legs burn as she runs, but she doesn’t stop, can’t stop. They see Nyota first, standing over Jim like a guardian angel. His head is pillowed on his knees, and his shoulders are shaking. T’Pring drops to her knees beside him, Spock on his other side. 

“Everything is okay, t’hy’la” Spock says. “T’Pring and I are right here.” T’Pring thinks _t’hy’la!?_ but then Jim looks up with a wild, frantic look in his eyes. 

“I said no, I swear, I said no, and he just--”

“Shh, Jim, no one will hurt you now. I’m here.”

“Spock,” Jim breathes, and then he throws himself into Spock’s arms and Spock lets him, holds him close. “Where’s T’Pring?” He turns around and throws himself into her arms, too. “I wanna go home.” 

“Let’s go, then,” Spock says, pulling Jim to his feet and putting his arm around Jim’s shoulders. Jim looks at him with such palpable adoration in his eyes that something huge and essential clicks into place in T’Pring’s head. Nyota touches her back softly, and she relaxes minutely, pulling Nyota into a hug. 

“Thank you for looking after him,” T’Pring says. Nyota smiles, soft and beautiful. 

“Of course,” she says, and T’Pring wants to kiss her. She thinks maybe she will, someday. Now, though, she turns and walks away, jogging a little to catch up with her two best friends. Jim is recovering quickly, color returning to his cheeks. She punches him in the shoulder, and he punches back. 

“One day it will well and truly be behind us,” she tells him. 

The whole t’hy’la thing echoes around her brain for days until she can’t take it anymore. She’s been thinking constantly in the last couple of days, thinking about Jim, and Spock, and Jim and Spock; of herself, and Nyota, and her and Nyota. She thinks of how many times she thought she had a firm grasp of what her life would look like, and how many times that thought vanished into thin air and became something else entirely. Sometimes it’s been the fault of her parents, sometimes fate, sometimes Jim. For once, she resolves to take things into her own hands.

She and Jim are making dinner, while Spock finishes up a data set he is completing for extra credit, not that he needs it. Jim sets down a dish on the table, and Spock looks at him with unfettered affection, and she snaps.

“So, Spock,” she says casually, “you and Jim are t’hy’la?” Spock flushes green.

“T’Pring!”

“What?” Jim interjects. Spock shakes his head, but she barrels on. 

“How long have you known?” Spock dips his head. He looks guilty, contrite, caught. 

“Known what?” 

“I am sorry--” Spock starts. 

“Do not be a fool,” she says. “I’m right, am I not? How long have you known that you are t’hy’la?” Spock swallows.

“Since I met him, though, it took me considerably longer to identify.” 

“What’s happening?” Jim demands. “What’s t’hy’la?” 

“You and Spock are soulmates,” T’Pring says, raising a single eyebrow at Spock, daring him to say anything to the contrary. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jim demands. Spock’s head shoots up, he looks flustered and anxious and downright human. T’Pring would be enjoying this more if Jim didn’t look so upset; she never intended for him to be anything but happy. 

“Jim, please do not be angry. I-I believe we are t’hy’la. It is an old Vulcan word for...well, I suppose T’Pring’s translation is as good as any. But please, I do not want to--”

“Spock, please. What does this mean, really?” 

“It means that I love you.” They all pause for a moment, absorbing the true weight of those words. 

“But you and T’Pring are getting married?” Jim’s voice has dropped to a whisper. 

“Not anymore,” T’Pring says. “Spock, I officially hereby terminate our bond.” She feels their fledgling bond flicker in her brain but not disappear, merely changing form; they’re still bonded, she supposes, but it’s a platonic bond. A family bond. “You two have my permission to begin a romantic relationship. Please do not have intercourse in any common areas.” She turns and disappears into her room. She sinks to the floor to meditate, blocking out the sound of what might be clothes hitting the floor.

She sees Jim and Spock making out against the kitchen counter the next morning, looking in love and truly happy, and the corner of her mouth twitches. Now it’s time to complete phase two of her plan: wooing Nyota. 

Two months later, Jim and Spock are madly, desperately in love, and T’Pring is completely failing at wooing Nyota. She complains about it, endlessly, to Jim and Spock and whoever will listen. She thinks she makes an excellent romantic option: she’s smart and generally socially competent and can go four days without sleep. What more does Nyota want?

It’s particularly painful because Jim and Spock are practically all over each other, brushing their fingers together in public and calling each other ashayam. It’s disgusting. T'Pring finally understands the concept of and disgust with “PDA.” They also start to want a lot of “alone time together,” which T’Pring thinks is an oxymoron, but whatever. Because of this, T’Pring has a lot more free time to spend with Nyota, which is wonderful and painful all at the same time. Every time she thinks maybe Nyota likes her back, Nyota pushes her away, both figuratively and literally.

T’Pring begins to wonder if maybe she’s simply not human enough to love the way Jim and even Spock do; maybe her pure Vulcanness stops her from crossing some final, invisible boundary between platonic affection and romantic affection. 

Then Jim insists on doing the Kobayashi Maru again.

“I don’t believe in no win scenarios,” he boasts, sitting in the Captain’s chair with complete ease. He has just done the impossible and beaten the unbeatable test, which definitely involved cheating. T’Pring exchanges a fondly exasperated look with Spock. She turns to Nyota, who sits in the Communications Officers chair, expecting to see the same look, but Nyota isn’t happy like Jim or amused like her and Spock. She looks almost angry. 

“What’s wrong?” T’Pring asks, following Nyota out of the simulation room, passing an Officer who’s on his way to shout at Jim. He’ll survive. 

“That’s not the point of the test,” Nyota growls, grinding to a halt and turning around. Her hands gesture animatedly. “The point is to see how you react under pressure, not to win. Not everything is about winning all of the time.”

“Jim has lost a lot,” T’Pring says, defensively. “He deserves a win every now and then.” Nyota scowls. 

“I’m sure he has,” she snaps. “But sometimes life is about taking risks, not avoiding them.” She looks beautiful, even angry, and T’Pring decides to take her advice. She steps forward, brushing her fingers against Nyota’s, and pressing their lips together at the same time. Nyota pushes her away.

“I apologize--” she starts.

“T’Pring,” Nyota whispers, sounding wounded. “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because of Spock! Because you’re engaged. I understand how Vulcan culture works, okay, and I will not be, like, your mistress.” T’Pring could laugh.

“Spock and I broke off our betrothal,” she says. “So he could begin a romantic relationship with Jim.” 

“But--” A thought occurs to Nyota. “Really?”

“Yes. They are t’hy’la. And I think, perhaps, so are we.” Nyota doesn’t know the word, T’Pring knows, but she must understand the sentiment, because suddenly she’s smiling like the sun and pressing T’Pring up against the wall, intertwining their fingers and kissing her deeply.

“T’hy’la,” Nyota whispers, and it’s the best thing T’Pring has ever heard. 

That night, she and Jim lie on the roof of her and Spock’s building, staring up at the stars. 

“So,” Jim says. “You’re dating my sort of ex-girlfriend, huh?”

“You’re dating my ex-fiance,” T’Pring points out. Jim laughs and nudges their shoulders together. T’Pring changes the subject. “The stars are particularly beautiful tonight.”

“That’s just what they look like when you’re in love,” Jim says. “Makes everything seem infinitely more beautiful. 

“Perhaps,” T’Pring agrees. She never really thought about the stars until she was trapped in Jim’s storm cellar and couldn’t see them anymore. Now she can see them every night, surrounded by her best friends and potential soulmate. If everything goes according to plan (which is an uncertainty, considering that her best friend is James T. Kirk) she’ll soon live amongst them. “I am very grateful to have met you,” she whispers. Jim smiles. 

“Yeah, T,” he says. “Me too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at <https://sunshine394.tumblr.com/>!


End file.
